Authors: Michael Hjorth
Tags: #Mystery, #Fiction / Thrillers, #Adult, #Thriller
Dark Secrets (65 page)
“Thanks, that was good timing.”
The woman barely glanced at him. Sebastian went inside and the door closed behind him with a heavy thud. He looked at the list of residents again, even though he knew what it said.
Third floor.
He thought about taking the elevator, which traveled up through the center of the building through a black metal cage, but decided against it. He needed all the time he could get. His heart was beating faster and faster, and his palms were sweaty. He was nervous. That didn’t happen very often.
Slowly he began to walk up the stairs.
There were two doors on the third floor. He could see Eriksson and another name on one of them. A moment to gather his thoughts. He closed his eyes. Took a couple of deep breaths. Then he stepped forward and rang the bell. Nothing happened. Sebastian felt almost relieved. No one home. He had tried, but no one had opened the door. He had been wrong. They weren’t meant to meet, he and Anna Eriksson. Not today, at any rate. Sebastian was just about to turn away and head back down the stairs when he heard footsteps inside the apartment, and the next moment the door opened.
A woman a few years younger than Sebastian was looking at him. She had dark, shoulder-length hair and blue eyes. High cheekbones. Narrow lips. Sebastian didn’t even recognize her now that she was standing in front of him. He had no recollection whatsoever of going to bed with this woman who was drying her hands on a red-checked kitchen towel and looking at him with an inquiring expression.
“Hi, are you…” Sebastian lost the thread. Didn’t know where to start. His mind had gone blank. Even though a thousand thoughts were whirling around. The woman stood there staring at him, not saying a word.
“Anna Eriksson?” Sebastian managed at last. The woman nodded.
“My name is Sebast—”
“I know who you are,” the woman interrupted him. Sebastian was completely taken aback.
“You do?”
“Yes. What are you doing here?”
Sebastian didn’t know what to say. He had pictured this meeting so many times since he had read the letters. But now events had taken a completely different turn from the way he had imagined. He had expected her to be almost shocked, perhaps even sway slightly. It would be a total surprise. A ghost from thirty years ago was standing outside her door. He would have to provide proof of his identity in order for her to believe him. Nothing like this encounter with a woman who tucked a corner of the kitchen towel into the waistband of her pants, then stared at him with a challenging look in her eye.
“I…” Sebastian broke off. He had gone through this in his mind as well. He might as well stick to the plan. Start from the beginning.
“My mother died, and when I was clearing out her house I found some letters.”
The woman remained silent but nodded. She obviously knew which letters he was referring to.
“It said in the letters that you were pregnant. With my child. I just came to find out if that was true, and if so, what happened.”
“Come in.”
The woman stepped aside and Sebastian walked into the narrow hallway. Anna closed the door behind him, and he bent down to untie his shoelaces.
“There’s no need for that. You won’t be staying.”
Sebastian straightened up. “Oh?”
“I wanted you out of the stairwell. It echoes.” Anna positioned herself directly opposite him and folded her arms.
“It’s true. I was pregnant and I looked for you, but I didn’t find you. And to be perfectly honest, I stopped looking a very long time ago.”
“I realize you’re angry, but—”
“I’m not angry.”
“I never got the letters. I didn’t know anything about it.”
They both fell silent. Stood there facing each other. For a moment Sebastian wondered what would have happened if he had known. All those years ago. If he had gone back to Anna Eriksson and become a father. What would his life with this woman have been like? It was ridiculous even to think about it, of course. It was pointless to speculate about a possible future, an alternative present. Besides which, he would never have gone back to her, even if he had received the letters. Back then. Not the old Sebastian.
“I saw you maybe… fifteen years ago.” Anna’s voice was calm. “When you helped to catch that serial killer.”
“Hinde. Ninety-six.”
“I saw you on TV. If I’d still wanted to get in touch, I’m sure I could have tracked you down then.”
Sebastian absorbed this information for a moment.
“But I do have a child?”
“No. I have a daughter. My husband has a daughter. You do not. Not here and not with me, anyway.”
“So she doesn’t know that…”
“He’s not her father?” said Anna. “No. He knows, of course. But she doesn’t, and if you tell her you will destroy everything.”
Sebastian nodded, looking down at the floor. He wasn’t completely surprised. This was one of the scenarios that had played out in his mind. That the child didn’t know it had a different father. He would shatter a happy family. He had done it before when he had slept with married women and had perhaps not always been as discreet as he might have been, but this was a different matter.
“Sebastian…”
He looked up. Anna had unfolded her arms and was looking at him with an expression that demanded his full attention.
“You really would destroy everything. For all of us. She loves us. She loves her father. If she found out now that we’ve been lying to her all these years… I don’t think we’d get through it.”
“But if she is mine, then…” A feeble final attempt. Doomed from the start.
“She isn’t. Maybe she was. For a while. She could have been, if you’d come back. But now she isn’t.”
Sebastian nodded. He could see the logic in what she was saying. What would be the point? What would he get out of it? It almost seemed as if Anna could read his mind.
“What can you give her? A total stranger turns up after thirty years and says he’s her father. What’s that going to achieve, apart from destroying our family?”
Sebastian nodded and moved toward the door.
“I’ll go.”
As he was about to open the door, Anna touched his upper arm. He turned to face her.
“I know my daughter well. You would destroy our family, and she would end up hating you.”
Sebastian nodded.
He understood.
He left the apartment and the other life that could have been, could have become his. Anna closed the door behind him and he stood there at the top of the stairs.
That was it, then.
Done.
He had a daughter. A daughter he would never see. Never get to know. All the tension that had been building up for so long ebbed away, and he felt utterly exhausted. His legs almost buckled. He moved over to the stairs leading up to the next floor and sat down.
Stared into space.
Empty.
Completely empty.
Far away he heard the dull thud of the outside door closing three flights down. He wondered how he was going to get home. It wasn’t far, but at the moment it seemed like an insurmountable obstacle.
It took a few seconds before he registered that the elevator on his left had begun to move. He stood up. If the elevator stopped here, he would travel down in it. At least that would be a first step on the long journey home to his empty apartment.
He was in luck. The elevator stopped at the third floor. Sebastian really didn’t want to see anyone. Not even to exchange meaningless smiles in the doorway of an elevator. As the person inside the elevator pulled back the metal door, Sebastian moved a couple of steps farther up. The person emerged and Sebastian caught a glimpse of her through the grille above the cage.
There was something.
Familiar.
Extremely familiar.
“Hi, Mom, it’s me,” he heard. Vanja. She left the door open as she kicked off her shoes, and Sebastian was just able to see Anna before Vanja closed the door behind her.
He remembered now. The names. On the door. He had been so focused on Eriksson that he hadn’t even registered the other name.
Lithner.
Vanja Lithner.
Vanja was his daughter.
Nothing could have prepared him for this information.
Nothing.
Sebastian felt his legs give way, and he had to sit down.
It was a long time before he got up again.
We would like to thank everyone at Norstedts; they have been positive and supportive ever since our very first meeting, giving us confidence and making our work even more enjoyable.
Special thanks to Eva, Susanna, Peter, and Linda.
We would also like to thank the company Tre Vänner, particularly Jonas, Tomas, Johan, and William, for allowing us to try out our wings with their blessing.
A big thank-you to our families, who have heard so much about Sebastian Bergman over the past year that it has probably bordered on torture.
Hans would like to thank Sixten, Alice, and Ebba: you’re absolutely fantastic. And Lotta, truly the “queen of everything.”
Micke would like to say to Astrid, Caesar, William, and Vanessa: you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.
M
ICHAEL
H
JORTH
was born in 1963 in Visby, Sweden. He is one of Scandinavia’s most accomplished screenwriters and producers, and is founder of the production company Tre Vänner.
H
ANS
R
OSENFELDT
was born in 1964 in Borås, Sweden. Before writing for television in 1992, he worked as a sea lion keeper, a teacher, and an actor. He has since written screenplays for more than twenty drama series.
The first novel of the Sebastian Bergman Chronicles,
Det Fördolda
, was published in Sweden in 2010 and soon hit the bestseller lists. It has since sold to more than eighteen countries, and a television series has also been made.
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Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2010 by Michael Hjorth and Hans Rosenfeldt
Translation copyright © 2012 by Marlaine Delargy
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
Grand Central Publishing
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First e-book edition: April 2013
First published in Sweden in 2010 as
Det Fördolda
by Nordstedts.
First published in Australia in 2012 by Pier 9, an imprint of Murdoch Books.
First published in Great Britain in 2012 by Trapdoor
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ISBN 978-1-4555-2074-9